'Lo All,
I have insured my last two boats (43' Albin and a 17.5' Bayliner) with Boat/US. I have had two claims, both on the Albin: a lightening strike took out all DC powered electronics ($42,000 total bill) and then the total loss due to Hurricane Michael. I could not be happier with the service from Boat/US. They only asked for pictures of the lightening strike damage, which was "intuitively obvious", when looking at one VHF antenna and seeing the center shaft and peeled back strips of fiberglass and burned conductor. I was instructed to take the boat to an electronics repair shop that was on an "approved list" and get it repaired. On the catastrophic loss of the Celestial, it was equally simple. An adjuster came and asked how the boat was tied. It was tied with doubled and some tripled lines of 3/4" nylon rope - which pulled out 3 50' pilings sunk 25' into the bottom sand, broke one piling at the waterline, and tilted a third over to about 40 degrees from vertical (lines then slid up and off the top of the piling). The settlement check arrived shortly thereafter. One of the more interesting pictures I took after the storm was of the boat with a piling extending from above the stern rail down through the salon entrance and on to the hull bottom near the bow. I don't know if that piing punched a hole in the hull or if the hull was penetrated from the boat thrashing around where it grounded during the storm. When the boat was removed after the storm, it quickly sank into the slings that the salvage team placed under it.
Bottom line: Boat/US served me very well for those losses and I still have Boat/US insurance on the Bayliner. I have recommended Boat/US insurance to others.
